According to the (wrong) conventional wisdom of the wider world, August 24th marks the sixth month since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. War, in all its horrors, has only been really and truly in our faces for the past six months — and not in the frozen, distant sense that has marked the conflict for the past eight years. For Ukrainians, today is more like the 3,108th day of fighting (give or take a day or two) in a war that began with Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and Moscow’s first attempt to seize the eastern Donbas region. Much has been written in the past six months about the brutal effects of the war on the people of Ukraine and their pulverized cities. But one expert who follows the conflict closely is now paying increasing attention to what he suspects are signs that the Russian regime itself is beginning to reveal itself. The recent killing of ultra-nationalist Darya Dugina, 29, in Moscow has drawn the attention of observers who believe it is a sign of growing, violent divisions in Russia over the war. Philosopher Alexander Dugin, center, speaks with a priest during the farewell ceremony for his daughter Darya Dugina in Moscow on Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2022. (Dmitry Serebryakov/AP) The daughter of philosopher Alexander Dugin — a man often referred to as “Putin’s mastermind” because of his reported influence over the Russian leader — died in a car bombing last week. “It was significant,” said Sean Maloney, a professor of history at the Royal Military College and an expert on Russia. “We now have a destabilized Russian regime in a way that we haven’t seen destabilization in years. And it’s only in this space because of this invasion.” The Russian security service (FSB) has made different scenarios after the bombing, one of which blames the Ukrainians. The government in Kyiv strongly denied involvement in the attack. Maloney said Moscow’s explanation “reeks of Stalinist disinformation” and ignores the growing divide in Russian society between those who strongly support the war and anti-war activists who are becoming increasingly vocal. Dugin and his daughter were at a festival near Moscow where the ultranationalist philosopher gave a lecture on Saturday night. The two were supposed to leave in the same car but, at the last minute, Dugin reportedly changed his mind. Maloney said someone inside Russia was either targeting Dugin or trying to send a message by killing his daughter. “Whichever way you look at it, there are obviously elements of people in Moscow who are not happy with what’s going on, either [the war in Ukraine] it doesn’t go far enough or it’s gone too far,” he said. As the full-scale invasion reaches the six-month mark, Maloney said, it has become clear that the war has been “disastrous” for Russia in ways the West is just beginning to wrap its head around. They have been pushed back from Kyiv and Kharkiv and fought to a stalemate in the Donbass. The Ukrainian general staff estimates that Russia has suffered over 40,000 combat deaths. Some of Russia’s problems were obvious. Some were subtle. The inability of the Russian military to quickly conquer Ukraine was evident. The political and social breakdown of a society — especially in an authoritarian regime — is harder to see until it explodes into the light, Maloney said. Alima Tatiyeva, widow of Nurlan Tatiyev, a Russian soldier killed in Ukraine, cries during a ceremony to award the Order of Courage to families of slain soldiers in Volgograd, Russia on June 30, 2022. (Alexandr Kulikov/AP) For now, the Kremlin is keeping a tight lid on the dispute. Dugin has blamed Ukraine for his daughter’s murder and is seeking revenge. “We just need our victory [against Ukraine]. My daughter sacrificed her young life on the altar of victory,” he said in a statement on Monday. Dugin has previously presented the war as a much broader spiritual battle. After the annexation of Crimea, he said that “Ukraine must… disappear from the face of the Earth and be rebuilt from scratch.” Ordinary Russians are now paying the price for that vision — in lost lives, in mounting damage to their economy. Russia experts around the world are watching closely now to see how long these ordinary Russians are willing to go on. A woman uses her cellphone as she walks past a billboard with a portrait of a Russian soldier and the words “Glory to the heroes of Russia” in St. Petersburg, Russia on August 20, 2022. (Dmitri Lovetsky/AP) “This is a war on racism [Russian President] Vladimir Putin and his leadership,” said Matthew Schmidt, an associate professor and national security expert at the University of New Haven in Connecticut. “It’s a war of egos who will continue to pile on the bodies because they are not strong enough to admit wrong.” Labeling the day as the “sixth month anniversary” hurts Ukrainians, he added. “There will be more such false anniversaries, because the roots of the war are deep in the minds and aspirations of too many, but not all, in Russia,” he said. “Such roots are not easily pulled.”
